'The Spectre Commands' (Japanese leaflet to Australian troops)

A colour leaflet headed 'THE SPECTRE COMMANDS'. A hooded spectre in a dark cloak, holding a U.S. flag on a pole, points down at a prostrate figure labelled AUSTRALIA, whose dish and spoon lie beside him. Red overprinted text puts words in Roosevelt's mouth about Americans eating Australians out of their homes and fighting 'to the last Australian'. The tell is the attribution of invented speech to a named U.S. leader to turn Australian soldiers against their ally.

Date: 1945
Period: Second World War
Made by: Imperial Japanese forces (attributed on Wikimedia Commons as 'Japanese Government')
Region: East Asia
Country: Empire of Japan
Medium: Leaflet
Issuer type: Military
Regime: Showa Japan
Leader: Kuniaki Koiso
Audience: Enemy forces
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Themes: War and the military, Empire and colonialism
Event: World War II
Techniques: Scapegoating
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: Wikimedia Commons (image sourced from psywarrior.com), retrieved October 2, 2026
Rights: Public domain: anonymous Japanese wartime leaflet c. 1945 (Commons marks it PD)
Japanese wartime leaflet (anonymous); reproduction via psywarrior.com and Wikimedia Commons. The Commons page uses a U.S.-federal PD template that does not fit a Japanese-made leaflet; the basis relied on is its anonymous Japanese 1945 origin.

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

THE SPECTRE COMMANDS
Roosevelt:
Thou shalt go, Americans,
and eat the Australians
out of their Homes.
If necessary
the Americans
will fight the last
Australian.
AUSTRALIA

Red overprinted text read from a 252 x 352 px image; the wording of the middle lines is uncertain and may differ in places from the printed original.